Magic and Failure
In an interesting blog post Nick Farrell asked a pivotal, and yet frequently ignored, question about why some magic fails. He cited a number of reasons people have given over time, including classic cop-outs like God or your Higher Self saying no, and the more acceptable notion of psychological blocks. On the first topic, I do not personally believe that God or the Higher Self would refuse a request. This might be an acceptable idea in a devotional school of thought, but magicians do not simply go with the flow—they create and direct the flow. A magician is an active player in the universe, one who takes responsibility for his or her life. If a ritual for a job is performed and it does not work, then the magician cannot simply blame God and accept this as "the way it is meant to be." Such fatalistic thinking has no place in magic. So if external forces are not stopping us, that leaves internal forces. In many ways we are our own worst enemies, and part of the proces...